Chapter 78: Road to Duskmere
The road north swallowed us.
Not in menace — in memory.
Paths here remembered what armies had done to them: scorched edges, rutted clay, wheel marks that had not yet forgiven weight. Duskmere was three days on foot for a civilian caravan, one and a half with a Divinia-pace march. We pushed faster without speaking about why.
The world felt like it was waiting.
The Vale road unraveled through knotted spruce and old stone milestones covered in moss. The farther north we traveled, the quieter the forest became — not peaceful quiet, emptied quiet — like something had pressed its thumb into the world and rubbed life out of it.
Santina dropped back beside me, voice low.
“Notice anything?”
I had. But hearing someone else say it made the air colder.
“Too quiet,
